


Christmas Eve 1717

by KitMiller



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: As I believe the kids call it, Death, Drowning, For the immortals, Gen, Hurt Some Comfort, Hypothermia, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Whump, Natural Disasters, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Whump, Temporary Character Death, Whump, but not everyone here is immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27858218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitMiller/pseuds/KitMiller
Summary: On Christmas Eve 1717, the Frisian coast was hit by one of the most devastating storm floods in history.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 14
Kudos: 135





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly inspired by the literally awesome song "Weihnachtsflut 1717" by the German band Versengold. If you understand German, I urge you to give it a listen, it still sends shivers down my spine!
> 
> I have tagged this as "no archive warnings apply" because none of them do; but this fic still deals with very heavy subject matter. Please refer to the tags and the following content warnings: a lot of death and dying, description of death and dying, specifically through drowning and/or hypothermia, and the death of children; the immediate aftermath and long-lasting effects of a natural disaster; and the crushing feeling of helplessness in the face of such a disaster. Reader discretion is advised.

_Maui, October 20**_

When the storm makes the window panes rattle and the surf crash like a clap of thunder, Nicky gets up so abruptly, his chair tips over. He grabs it before it hits the ground, reflexes sharper than the blade of his sword.

" _Calmati_ , Nicolò," Joe says, his voice low and reassuring. " _Tutto bene_."

" _Io so_ ," Nicky replies, his jaw twitching. His hand jumps to his chest, where Nile knows he has his handgun on missions. His eyes, wide and dark, are fixed on the window. " _Io so, amore. Non posso farci niente._ " 

The storm wails, the surf booms, and Nicky twitches. He starts to walk towards the kitchen, then turns, walks to the bedroom door, turns again, walks to the kitchen.

It's such an un-Nicky thing that it takes Nile a moment before she realises he is pacing.

"Sit down, Nicky," says Andy. Her voice is even. She uncorks a bottle of wine and pours Nicky a glass. Joe shakes his head when she offers it to him.

Nicky sits down heavily.

"You okay?" Nile asks while Andy is pouring her a glass of the excellent wine. 

"Yes," Nicky replies, sounding annoyed at himself. He flinches when the waves roar. "I'm all right, Nile. I'm just —" he sighs.

Nile watches him. "Is this gearing up to another story?" She can think of worse ways to spend a stormy day, but she'd be hard-pressed to think of better ones.

Nicky breathes in. "It was… I… we…" he stutters to a halt, and shakes his head. He turns to Joe to press his forehead against his shoulder. "You tell the story, Joe," he murmurs.

Joe is quiet for a moment. Nile has learned that this means he's thinking about where to start. When he finally begins, his voice is soft and melodic, like he is reciting something that is not quite a song and not quite a poem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Calmati, Nicolò. Tutto bene." -- It. "Calm down, Nicolò. Everything's all right."  
> "Io so. Io so, amore. Non posso farci niente." -- It. "I know. I know, love. I can't help it (lit. I cannot do anything)."


	2. The Water

_Eastern Frisia, Christmas Eve 1717_

The last thing Joe remembered was an ice-cold Nicky crawling into bed with him after he had been out hearing midnight mass. Nicky was whispering something, probably telling him to go back to sleep, and Joe pressed a kiss to the back of his neck — he tasted of salt and the cold — and muttered a half-incoherent "Merry Christmas, my love." The next thing he knew was the frantic, tinny din of the chapel bell, the cries of "Arise! Arise! Northwest wind! Arise!" and the panic, and the cold, and the water.

Between his sleep-addled brain, the dialect, and the cacophony of the storm and the yelling around them, Joe didn't understand what was happening. He was outside, in his undergarments, already soaked to the bone. All around him were people, all in their night-clothes as well, running and shouting and grabbing things.

"It's a storm flood! The dykes are breaking!" Andy shouted in French, to him, to Nicky, to anyone who could understand her. "Get on a roof or run!" Then she repeated herself in at least three different languages, directing the panicked throng of people.

Nicky was struggling into a coat, the rain plastering his hair to his forehead and the wind tugging violently at his clothes. Movement caught Joe's eye, and he could barely pull Nicky out of the way of a flying piece of wood before it hit him in the back of the head.

"The roof!" Andy shouted again. "Get on a roof!" She whirled around to face Joe and Nicky. She didn't need to tell them — the three of them moved as one, helping where they could.

They propped up ladders. They hauled carts and ploughs out of sheds to make room and use as makeshift steps. They lifted people up onto haylofts, attics, and rooftops. 

There was a group of women, most of them clutching children to their sides. Joe, Nicky, and Andy exchanged one brief glance, then they herded the group towards the nearest hayloft.

Joe went up first. The boards, green with moss and lichen, groaned dangerously beneath him, but further in, they were sturdier. He crawled back to the opening and beckoned for Andy. Between them hauling up the frightened people and Nicky giving them a hand from below and holding the ladder, everyone made it up onto the hayloft swiftly and safely. 

By the time Nicky lifted up the last of them, a girl of maybe four or five years, the water was already sloshing around his waist. Joe took a hold of the girl, handing her over to Andy. As he did so, something slipped from the girl's grasp and fell down the ladder.

"My doll, my doll!" screamed the girl. Joe could barely take hold of her nightdress before she could fall from the loft in her frantic grab for her lost toy.

Nicky looked about wildly. The water kept rising and lapping and churning, and he had trouble keeping himself on his feet. 

_Leave it!_ Joe wanted to yell. _It's just a toy, she will forget about it before the week is out!_ But he knew Nicky would not listen. Here was a child in distress, and Nicky was going to do everything he could to ease that distress.

Nicky spotted the doll, tossed away by the waves, and lunged after it, grabbed for it, missed, and nearly fell; Joe's heart gave out, but Nicky held himself above the water. He grabbed again, and this time he caught the hem of the doll's dress between his middle and ring finger. He waded back to the ladder, against the tide. "Josef!"

He didn't need to call. Joe was already leaning down as far as he dared. Andy had her hands on him, ready to catch him should he fall. Nicky held up the doll, and Joe took it. He rolled over onto his back and shuffled backwards, distributing his weight as evenly as he could. 

The girl snatched the doll out of his hands and pressed it close to herself. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She babbled. 

Joe gave her a brief smile, saw to it that the others took care of her, and crawled back to the opening to give Nicky a hand. 

Nicky swayed on the ladder, and Joe reached out to pull him up. Nicky grabbed the edge of the hayloft. The storm and the waves howled, the noise overrunning Joe's brain like an overwhelming army overruns an outnumbered opponent. 

The wood groaned under Nicky's weight. And then, suddenly, faster than Joe could see, the brittle boards of the loft gave way, and Nicky fell. Joe lunged forwards, grabbing for Nicky's hand. Their fingertips brushed over one another, and then the black, churning sea swallowed Nicky whole. The last thing Joe saw of him before he disappeared was his face, wide-eyed and contorted in sheer, animal terror. 

If Andy hadn't bodily thrown herself on him, Joe would have jumped in after Nicky. He bucked and grappled and scrambled. His throat hurt. He realised it was because he was screaming. And now Andy was closer to the opening and Joe hauled her back from the writhing waters beneath them. And then Andy hauled Joe back. He didn't even know what they were wrestling over. All he knew were two things. One was that he needed to get to Nicky. And the other was that he couldn't lose Andy, too. 

A sudden, sharp pain exploded on his cheek and he jumped. The fog clouding his mind lifted just in time to see an old woman deliver another slap, this one to Andy's cheek. The two of them sat there, holding their cheeks, and staring at the old woman. 

" _Seid ihr denn von allen guten Geistern verlassen?!_ " the old woman yelled. Joe and Andy could do little more than blink. "What in God's name are you trying to accomplish, _ihr Dummköpfe?_ He's gone! You can't save him!" 

Joe sat back, his hand still on his cheek. 

"He's gone," the woman reiterated. Her eyes were of steel. "There's nothing you can do now except wait and pray for the good God to have mercy on us." She eyed Joe. But then she didn't say anything else and just turned back to the other villagers. 

The group huddled down. Joe recognised the cadences of the Lord's prayer.

Next to him, Andy had her shaking hands fisted in the hem of her skirt. Her eyes were tightly shut. 

Joe put his forehead on his drawn-up knees and cried. _Allahu Akbar_ , he thought, _let him be all right. La hawla wa-la quwwata illa bi-llah, let him be all right. Let him be all right..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Seid ihr denn von allen guten Geistern verlassen?" -- Dt. "Have you lost your minds?" Or more closely, "Have you taken leave of all your senses?"  
> "Ihr Dummköpfe" -- Dt. "You imbeciles/idiots"  
> "Allahu Akbar" -- Ar. "God/Allah is greater" or "God/Allah is (the) greatest." This phrase, known as the Takbir, is used by Muslims in a wide variety of contexts, including prayer, celebrations, and great distress.  
> "La hawla wa-la quwwata illa bi-llah" -- Ar. "There is no power or strength except by God/Allah." This phrase, known as the Hawqala, is used by Muslims in distressing situations or situations beyond their control.
> 
> I am not Muslim and I hope I have been accurate and respectful. If I have not, please let me know.


	3. The Cold

Joe had never been this cold. He hadn't even been this cold during the winter they had spent in the mountains of Northern Sweden. The group of Sámi they had been staying with had gifted them clothes that had been as warm as they had been colourful. Most importantly though, they had been dry. Joe wasn't sure if there was anything he wouldn't give for dry clothes right now. 

But Joe was listening to the chatter of his teeth, louder even than the continuous, endless roar of the storm tide around them, and he had never been this cold. Oh, it was going to be such a hassle, dying in front of all these people.

The boards shifted, wheezed, and sagged as Andy shuffled herself towards him. Joe thought it a small miracle that they didn't give way under her, too. She wasn't much drier than him, but he welcomed her embrace nonetheless. Maybe he was imagining it, but he already felt a little warmer. 

The group had fallen silent. Some were dozing fitfully. Some were still praying. One woman, who sat close to Joe, had a crying baby in her arms. Joe watched the little bundle thrash and weep and wondered why the mother didn't make any moves to calm it. Then he looked at her face. Lips blue. Eyes closed. Head lolling to the side.

Joe closed his eyes and sent a small prayer after her soul. Then he reached out for the baby, cautiously watching the rest of the group. But nobody protested, so he took it — her — in his arms and rocked her gently. 

He started singing, a lullaby he had thought he'd long since forgotten.

When the last notes faded from his lips, the child had calmed down, only hiccoughing occasionally. Joe watched her tiny face. 

Someone else started to sing. He didn't recognise the language, and when he looked over at the group, it was none of them. 

Andy. It was Andy singing.

She didn't seem to remember all the words, as there were stretches where she just hummed. Her voice was cracked and thin. Joe didn't know the lullaby, but he could tell there were some notes she didn't hit quite right. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

After that, they took turns, singing lullabies from all over the world, from all over history. Once, Joe began one in a dialect not far from Nicky’s, and the words became stuck in his throat and he stopped. Andy took it up without pause. She didn’t tell Joe that everything would be all right, that Nicky would be all right. They both knew that he might not be. They both knew that after all this would be over, it could only be the two of them left. So Andy didn’t insult Joe’s intellect with empty words she didn’t believe herself. But Joe still got the feeling that she sang the lullaby for his benefit as much as for the child’s.


	4. The Aftermath

There was a puddle by Joe's feet. It was glittering. 

Wait.

Joe sat up, blinked the exhaustion from his eyes. He still had the baby in his arms; she had gone quiet and still and Joe panicked until she cried at being jostled. Next to him, Andy started awake, alert within a heartbeat. 

The puddle by his feet was glittering in the sunlight. 

It was over.

*

The girl whose doll Nicky had rescued had died in the night. Joe, the baby still in his arms, watched as Andy carried her body down the ladder and laid her gently on the ground, placing the doll on her chest and folding her hands over it. The old woman was next to her, murmuring a prayer for the girl. Andy stood, and went back to the ladder to help Joe and the baby down. A scream rang out behind them and they turned; a woman staggered towards the girl and fell to her knees beside her, wailing and sobbing. 

Andy put her hand on Joe’s back, and Joe took a step closer to her until their shoulders touched. They stood there for a few moments, and Joe wasn’t quite sure whether they were comforting one another or sharing their despair. Andy finally dropped her hand, and Joe went looking for the baby’s family. 

The village was in ruins. The streets were strewn with corpses and clutter. Everytime Joe spotted the body of a man with brown hair, his heart stopped until he saw that it wasn’t Nicky. It never was Nicky. Relief mingled with fear in his gut until he felt sick and had to fight down the nausea. 

He asked around. The first person hadn't seen the baby’s family. Neither had the second. Or the third. Or the fourth or fifth or sixth. Joe hugged the baby closer and asked the seventh.

"Over here!" someone called. Joe turned. A man stumbled towards Joe, his hands already outstretched towards him, and Joe handed him the baby without a second thought. 

The father crooned and warbled at the child. For a moment, he put her to his forehead and closed his eyes. Joe didn't comment on the tears that ran down his cheeks. 

"Her mother, where is —" the man looked around. 

Joe shook his head. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly. "It was too cold."

The man let out a sob, hugging the child even closer. "Thank you," he said, not looking at Joe. "For taking care of her."

Joe nodded, and had to turn away and see where else he could help. He found himself inside the church, the tiny little church that was barely big enough to fit the whole village, where Nicky had heard mass just a few brief hours ago. It stood remarkably intact, the walls of stone rather than wood, clay, sand, and straw, as the houses' had been. But the colourful windows, pride of the village, were shattered, and there still stood water up to Joe's ankles inside. There had been paintings on the wall. Joe had let himself get talked into promising to freshen them up; there was nothing to be done to save them, now. 

There had been talk of building a bigger church, on account of the growing numbers in the village. Joe didn't think they would, now. They'd be hard-pressed to find enough money to restore this one. And a bigger one would not be needed after all.

Joe left the church. The priest was outside, clutching the cross around his neck and choking out a prayer through a tear-constricted throat. Andy, a few steps to the side, bent down to pick something up, glimmering in the mud. She brushed the dirt away as best she could, then gave the golden Eucharist chalice, bent and dented, to the priest. He ran his hands over the metal like it was a trembling animal. He thanked Andy, quietly, but she shook her head and already turned away to see where else she could make herself useful. Joe followed her. He tried not to think of Nicky.

They cleared rubble away and scoured the ruins of the village for food and water, distributing it among the townspeople. They recovered bodies from the wreckages. Andy helped butcher one of the drowned cows. Joe tried to make a fire, but the wood was soaked through. 

A shout rang out; everyone turned to look at where the shouter was pointing. A figure was emerging from the rubble, another person slung over their shoulders. The figure stumbled, but regained their footing quickly. 

Joe was moving before he recognised who it was. He took the unconscious body from Nicky, and someone else took the body from him; Nicky swayed like the weight on his shoulders had been the only thing keeping him steady. 

Somebody handed him a waterskin and he drank in deep, greedy gulps.

"How did you survive?" someone asked.

"The Grace of God," Nicky gasped out. He'd lost his coat. He'd lost his shoes. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't stopper the waterskin and Joe took it and did it for him. "A lucky rooftop and nothing but the Grace of God."

Joe pulled him in, put his hands on his icy face, and kissed him. He tasted of salt and the cold. Nicky kissed him back with a desperation that tore Joe's heart asunder.

They were in full view, but they didn't care. Nobody cared. Not when standing in the wrecked remains of their livelihood. Not when faced with the horrible truth that whatever happened, life would never be the same again.

They broke the kiss, but stayed wrapped in each other's arms; Nicky leaned his forehead against Joe's, breathing out bone-deep exhaustion. 

Nicky's hands tightened on Joe's shoulders, then they slipped off, and he sat down heavily on an upturned cart. Joe unstoppered and gave him back the waterskin, and Nicky drank. He managed to stopper it by himself this time. 

He looked up into Joe's eyes. He was breathing deeply. Deliberately. He didn't say anything, and Joe knew that if he was ever going to talk about it, it would not be until a long time had passed. 

Andy walked by and nodded at Nicky. She went past them, and even though she had her back to him, Joe saw the moment she remembered what had happened. She spun around and knelt down in front of Nicky, holding his face. 

"Are you all right?" she murmured urgently. 

Nicky just nodded. 

Andy pulled him closer, their foreheads touching. She closed her eyes and sighed in relief. Then she stood and pulled Nicky along to his feet. "Come. We have a lot to do."

Nicky and Joe followed her without protest.

*

They found a body, a woman with dark hair fanning out around her head. When Joe tried to lift her up, he discovered she was frozen to the ground. Joe let go of her, unwilling to harm her any further. 

Beside Joe, Nicky started to shake. Before Joe could look up, Nicky had already turned around and walked away. 

(Months later, when Nature, cruel motherfucker that it is, decides to unleash a bout of Spring frost on the region, Nicky rubs at his arms, shivering and shaking. Joe holds him, knowing he needs to be warm. 

"Do you remember how we found bodies frozen to the ground?" Nicky whispers at last. 

Joe looks up, into Nicky's pain-contorted face. "Oh, no." He tightens his hold, as tight as he can. "Oh, no. Please don't tell me you also—" 

Nicky can only nod; he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. He takes a ragged breath, then another. "I'm fine," he mumbles. He swallows. Takes a deep breath; already it is steadier. "Don't — don't tell Andromache."

"I won't," Joe whispers into his shoulder. "How many times did you — ?" he asks, even quieter. 

Nicky still has his hands over his eyes. "Many," he says at last. He lowers his hands, puts them on Joe's arms. "Too many to count.")

*

"We have to go," Nicky declared in his native tongue one evening, standing in the middle of their messily constructed hut. He looked pitiful, desolate, wretched. "We — we have to go. There's nothing we can do here."

"What are you talking about?" Andy sounded tired. Andy was tired. "We're building houses and dykes and fending off looters and burying bodies."

"It _never ends,_ " Nicky retorted. There were tears in his eyes. "For every body we bury, two more are found. For every band of looters we fend off, more are forming. The earth is not going to yield any harvest for years, for decades. There's nothing we can do here. We have to go."

"Nicolò," Joe said, pulling him closer with an arm around his shoulders. His heart broke, broke, broke, to see Nicky, his unshakable, infazable Nicky, fall apart.

"We have to go," Nicky repeated, leaning towards Joe almost absently. "We can't go on like this."

"We're helping," Andy bit out towards her feet.

"And we're _miserable_ ," Nicky shot back. His voice broke on the last word.

Andy sat up.

"None of us are sleeping. We're barely eating, even when we have food. We're still burying bodies, _one year_ after it happened. I'm tired of being cold and wet and if we stay here for much longer I'm sure I'll go mad. I —" he choked on a sob for a moment, but bravely continued. "I want to stay, too, I want to stay here until all the salt is gone from the earth and I don't flinch when I hear the waves." Joe squeezed him, his heart breaking again and again. "But we can't. If we do, we'll —" he shrugged, finally turning to hug Joe back. Joe held him closer than he'd ever held him.

"I'm going," Nicky said after a while. "You can stay if you wish. I'm going."

"Don't talk nonsense," Joe grunted. "I haven't left your side for six hundred years. I'm not about to start now."

*

They went South the next morning. They left behind a wasteland.

*

The Mediterranean sea glittered in the sun, warm and blue, and the tang of salt hung in the air like the delicate touches of perfume. A breeze danced around them, warm and gentle. Nicky's fingers were digging painfully into Joe's arm, but Joe barely registered it. Next to them, Andy was swaying slightly, and finally dropped heavily down on the quay wall. Nicky and Joe sat on either side of her. They watched the sea.

It glittered and gently swayed in the sunlight. It hummed and danced. Boats sailed peacefully back and forth. Sea birds swooped in and out of the waves, crying out with the exhilaration of being alive.

This was the sea, so familiar, so similar to and yet so, so different from the one they had just escaped. They knew very well, they remembered, that this sea, too, could rage and howl in storm. 

But now, today, it stretched out in front of them, blue and peaceful. So unlike the sea that had swallowed houses whole a year ago.


	5. Epilogue

_Maui, October 20**_

Joe's voice peters out. For once, he struggles to find words.

"There's no ending to this story," Nicky says. He is looking down at his hands. "It happened. We were there. We did what we could, and it wasn't a lot."

Andy pours him another glass of wine. "Nicky didn't celebrate Christmas for a decade afterwards." Nicky picks up the wine and downs it in one go. "Storms set us on edge for a century." Nicky shoves the glass closer to her, and she obligingly fills it once more. "And storms by the sea still —"

"I think she got that," Nicky says, more bitterly than Nile ever heard him. He downs this glass, too. 

Joe takes it away before Andy can fill it again. "Waste of good vintage," he mutters.

*

Later that night, much later, when Joe and Andy have already fallen asleep, Nile asks into the pitch dark of the bedroom, "Was that the worst way you ever died?"

There's a pause and Nile is already beginning to think Nicky is asleep after all. Then he sighs. "Not even close."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Christmas Flood of 1717 really happened. More than 10,000 people died, and one region lost up to 30% of its population.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, kudo'd, bookmarked, and commented! I read them all and they make my day :D

**Author's Note:**

> My eternal thanks go, as always, to Beth.


End file.
